The present invention relates to reference-aid devices. More particularly, this invention is an improved and economically fabricated reference-aid apparatus to be used with various types of information retrieval problems, being mountable by a user on a surface, for quickly and accurately retrieving an item of information of user-defined importance.
As the information age continues, information processing becomes a vital function. Once a piece of information is located and identified as important to the user, re-accessing that unique information at a later time becomes more and more difficult. Because information changes so rapidly and because the volume of information is so great, it is very difficult for an information user to remember which magazine or book that important information was in, let alone which page in that document held the useful information. Students constructing term papers often suffer considerable anxiety resulting from trying to re-locate important information. Magazines and catalogs tend to stack up on coffee tables or shelves, general reference books get filed away and rarely re-used. Something in that magazine stack or book was important to the user at one time, but if more than five minutes is required to re-locate it, most people simply don't bother. The problem is particularly acute if a few days pass between the "first finding" and the subsequent "need to relocate" of an information bit.
Prior to this invention, information could not be pinpointed again with sufficient speed or accuracy. Much time and inconvenience was encountered, and much mental anguish suffered resulting from attempts to re-locate information important at the moment. Sometimes the search was abandoned altogether, often resulting in the more severe consequence of poor decisions due to incomplete information.
Publishers of books and periodicals have tried to overcome this problem by creating tables of contents and indexes, but these are generic and topical by nature, since the publisher is trying to accomodate a broad audience. The user's unique information demand, on the other hand, is usually very specific and rarely matches the topic contemplated by the publisher. Oftentimes, items of interest to a particular user are not even delineated in a table of contents, one example being advertisements, another example being photographs in a design magazine. In an era of rapidly changing technology, these ads are often the most useful source of up-to-date information.
Yet another information requirement is re-locating items placed in a freezer for storage--once a container has frosted over, no one remembers what it is or how long it has been there. Another example of the same problem is when one is dismantling an machine such as an automobile for repair. Pads are often mislaid or placed back into the machine in the wrong order.
This problem of re-accessing information was partly solved by the common bookmark, but that device does not give the user any qualitative reference information about the item being marked. Bookmarks also can be moved easily, which makes them somewhat unreliable as the user may forget which piece of information was marked. Bookmarks also tend to fall out which makes them unsuitable for marking multiple references.
An improvement was made by adhering blank or colored paper or plastic tabs such as Post-It Notes, or indexing tabs onto the page of interest, but the problem persisted because people again couldn't remember which tabs were for which items, and having multiple tabs on the same reference source with no central index for notes only made matters worse. Also, the tabs themselves were rarely handy when the "need to mark" arose, so the act of marking remained somewhat inconvenient.
A variety of systems have been used to address the problem of re-accessing information. Such systems generally include a series of adhesively mountable tabs or markers having indicia such as numbers or colors and are provided together with an adhesive backed index page which can be permanently mounted in a book.
These systems all have certain drawbacks. Some of the systems require the marker to extend past the edge of the marked page, which can cause damage to either the marker or the page itself.
There are systems which fabricate both the markers and the central index portion from the same piece of sheet stock using perforated lines to allow removal of the markers from the central index portion. The weakness of this method lies in the fact that the markers or the central index portion may be torn when removing the markers, as anyone knows who has accidently torn a stamp when removing it from a sheet or a roll.
Other systems incorporate the central index portion on a separate learning key card and/or in connection with an envelope to hold the markers and/or central index portion. This method is cumbersome to use, relatively costly to manufacture, and wastes precious natural resources by using an excessive amount of material.
Some systems which incorporate tabs with adhesive on 1/2 of one side may not attach securely to the page and may come loose during use.
There are systems in which the central index portion extends past the edge of the publication. This feature may cause the page to tear, or the central index to tear, or both.
Other systems have markers which are restricted to being pre-printed with names of books of the bible. These systems are useful only for referencing bibles, and only with the biblical book names.
Some systems are specifically designed for manufacture simultaneously with a publication. With this method the problem of re-accessing information persists with all other documents which do not happen include the specified referencing system at time of manufacture, as well as documents which are not published at all such as legal documents but may still contain reference material valuable to the user.
The present invention addresses the foregoing problems with existing indexing systems and provides a system which is suitable for marking a variety of documents with ease and convenience, and requires a minimum of manufacturing steps and materials.